This article uses new survey data to examine student preferences and experiences with active learning among a graduate student cohort across two key identity markers: international student status and gender. Our survey of students enrolled in a Master of International Relations program suggests that most view active learning favorably and believe…

Active learning techniques are being use with increasing frequency in the classroom and more time is being dedicated to designing and implementing them. However, the literature still suffers from a lack of rigorous empirical methods to test the effects of simulations. Most of the claimed benefits of utilizing simulations, and other active learning…

Studio-style course delivery involves the integration of laboratory activities with lecture elements of the course, with the goal of increasing student learning and satisfaction through directly linking laboratory and lecture concepts while focusing on active learning. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of studio delivery of an introductory…

Over the course of instruction, not only does most introductory physics students' content knowledge evolve but their attitudes and approaches to problem solving are also likely to evolve. This change may depend on many factors including the curricula and pedagogies used, the degree to which instruction actively engages students in the learning…

Background: Research illustrates that student motivations influence learning engagement, persistence, and achievement in powerful ways and that positive motivations are linked to deeper learning, critical thinking, pro-social behavior, and better performance. Most studies of learner motivation, however, are conducted outside of STEM and are…

A sophomore core chemical engineering course was co-taught by two different 4 instructors in Spring 2016 and Spring 2017 with approximately 90 students both semesters via an 5 active learning environment in a collaborative learning space. Both instructors were present for 6 almost all lectures and each instructor delivered approximately 50% of the…

Video "podcast" recordings of lectures are popular with students, but are often associated with a decrease in attendance and little increase in performance. Assessment has generally focused on the class as a whole, potentially masking benefits to different subgroups. In this study, conducted in 2 sections of a large active-learning…

This thesis explores impact of evidence-based active-engagement courses (EBAE) on student achievement and gender gap in introductory physics. The first study is about the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of the physics teaching assistants (TAs) at identifying introductory students' difficulties using the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and…

Being part of a cohesive learning community supports retention and success in early mathematics courses. Yet, large, unwelcoming lectures stand in opposition to this goal, isolating students and pushing them away from STEM. This paper offers a comparative analysis of three efforts to build community amongst students, all situated within a single…

Service learning has grown in popularity within higher education as a teaching pedagogy shown to foster student engagement as well as strengthen the relationships between the community and community college. Research has demonstrated that service learning places a focus on students gaining the hands-on experience tied closely to course objectives…

An action learning process was used at a large Midwestern business college ("LMBC") to promote greater use of active learning approaches in the classroom. At an all-college gathering, faculty received instruction and encouragement in the use of the case method in their respective classes. Faculty were subsequently surveyed about their…

Incorporation of active learning into large lecture classes is gaining popularity as a pedagogical method due to its known benefits in helping learning outcomes. A more recent active learning technique that has emerged is the flipped classroom. In this study, we investigated the effects of incorporating a "partial-flip" into an…

Interactive-engagement (IE) techniques consistently enhance conceptual learning gains relative to traditional-lecture courses, but attitudinal gains typically emerge only in small, inquiry-based curricula. The current study evaluated whether a "scalable IE" curriculum--a curriculum used in a large course (~130 students per section) and…

Active-learning environments such as those found in a flipped classroom are known to increase student performance, although how these gains are realized over the course of a semester is less well understood. In an upper-level lecture course designed primarily for biochemistry majors, we examine how students attain improved learning outcomes, as…

Slow faculty uptake of research-based, student-centered teaching and learning approaches limits the advancement of U.S. undergraduate mathematics education. A study of inquiry-based learning (IBL) as implemented in over 100 course sections at 4 universities provides an example of such multicourse, multi-institution uptake. Despite variation in how…